


Forbidden Planet

by SeeMaree



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Modern AU, graphic novelist!Peeta, muse!katniss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-20
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2018-04-27 05:27:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5035609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeeMaree/pseuds/SeeMaree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Katniss is used to getting dragged to nerd events, what she's not used to is finding drawings of herself in a random artist's display. </p>
<p>PiP submission Round 8  </p>
<p>Inspired by this iconic movie poster</p>
<p>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_Planet#/media/File:Forbiddenplanetposter.jpg</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Here’s the thing: Gale is a giant nerd. He never did grow out of his childhood obsession with comic books, (‘they’re graphic novels, Katniss,’) and as his lifelong best friend Katniss is one of the few people who knows.

It’s sort of funny how one moment he can be the intense police officer who takes himself a bit too seriously, and then the next he’s earnestly discussing obscure comic book characters. It’s always just been another thing about him to Katniss. A sort of cute thing, really. It’s sad that he feels like he has to be cagey and embarrassed about it, but she sort of gets it too. Big scary police officers aren’t supposed to be avid fanboys.

But it results in her being dragged into a culture she’s not much interested in. Who else will go to conventions and shows with him, when all his tough cop buddies are being kept in the dark? Katniss points out he could simply meet up with some of the other nerds he talks to online, but she doesn’t really begrudge him the time. He does show up for every single karate tournament and exhibition she participates in. That’s what friends do. And if somewhere along the line she’s become slightly less indifferent, started to have opinions about these graphic novels, well that’s cool too.

As far as nerd events go, this one isn’t half bad. A gallery showing of comic book art was not something she was previously aware of existing, but some of these guys are very talented. Some are even women.

She stops in front of an alcove filled with cool retro looking artwork, sci-fi via the 1950’s, and she’s checking prices, because owning one might be something she’s interested in, when she sees it.

A robotic alien on a lunal type surface, a woman in a gold swimsuit draped in its arms.

A really cool piece. Something Katniss would like to hang on her wall at home.

Except for one tiny detail.

The woman in the gold swimsuit? It’s her. Her face, her hair, her body.

Someone’s observed her closely enough to recreate her perfectly and put her into his weird retro space fantasy. It’s disturbing and violating.

A man steps up beside her. “Hi, any questions I can answer for you?”

She turns to look at him directly and his eyes widen in shock. “Did you draw this?” she demands, and he opens his mouth, closes it and nods. “Are you stalking me?” It may come out a bit louder than she expected, and heads swivel.

“No, I’m sorry I can explain, it was completely unintentional.”

“Unintentional? Are you kidding me? You’ve drawn me without my permission, hung it on the wall to sell and you expect me to believe that’s all a big accident?”

A patrician looking man in a suit appears at her elbow. “Madam, I’m going to have to ask you to leave, you’re disrupting the event.”

She stares at him, incredulous. “Me? He’s the one that’s some sort of creeper.”

The artist has flushed a deep share of red and is taking the picture off the wall. “Here, I’m sorry, please, just take it. I didn’t mean to frighten you, I’m so sorry.”

She wants to refuse it, but that would be self defeating. She sure doesn’t want someone else gaining possession of this image of her wearing a swimsuit. So she snatches it out of his hands and stomps out of the gallery.

Gale catches up to her halfway down the block. “You just had a yelling match with Peeta Mellark! What the hell happened?”

Wordlessly she shows him the artwork.

“Oh my God! How did you not tell me you’ve been posing for Peeta Mellark! I mean, it’s Peeta Mellark! You know how I feel about him. Can you introduce me? I mean, I’ve shaken his hand and gotten his autograph, but, wow this is, _wow_.”

“That’s who he was?” She knows the name. Gale is way far gone in a fanboy crush on the man. Katniss herself knows far too much about him by Gale-related osmosis. She knows, for example, that he isn’t affiliated with any of the larger publishing houses, and does all the work himself. Not that that changes anything. “And I haven’t posed for him, I’ve never met him before, he’s a creepy stalker or something.”

“No! Don’t you understand what an honor this is? You’re an inspiration to the man behind the Dark Lagoon graphic novels, the guy who wrote the whole Mystery of Mars series, this must be for his new project. He’s been very cagey about it on his blog.” He reverently hands back the picture. “Can I take a photo of this? Maybe of you holding it? The guys online are going to go crazy when they find out I know Peeta Mellark’s muse.”

“No way are you telling anyone about this.” She feels annoyed with him for not seeing how disturbing and inappropriate this is. He’s a police officer, he’s not supposed to take the stalker’s side.

“Do you think I should file some sort of restraining order? How can I make sure he doesn’t do this again?”

Gale’s mouth drops open. “You’re serious.” Katniss glares at him. “He’s not a danger to you, trust me, I know everything about him. He volunteers his time painting murals at schools in low income neighbourhoods. He talks on his blog about the problem of female objectification in comics, he’s like the guy all the girls want to date. There’s got to be a reasonable explanation.”

Of course Katniss doesn’t let Gale convince her that Peeta Mellark is harmless. The persona he’s developed to sell his work is surely only half the story. But she does hold off on taking any legal action.

Still, he’s on her mind as she teaches class later that week. She’s at the downtown community center teaching self defense techniques. Many of these women have told her stories of men who ‘seemed so nice at first,’ and it makes her wonder if she’s doing the right thing. Can she just let this appropriation of her likeness go? But what can she do without pursuing something complicated and lawyerish, give him a stern talking to?

It’s probably why, when she walks out of the gym and sees Peeta Mellark watching her (with a sketchbook in his hand), she may react without thinking. Overreact even. Either way, she’s got him pinned to the wall, watching his eyes bug out, less than two seconds later.

Her students crowd around excitedly. She’s done her best to convince them that a woman can overwhelm and overpower a man with skill and training, but they seemed thrilled to see it happening right in front of them. It’s not much of a demonstration though. Even though he’s stocky and muscular he’s not resisting at all. Like he knows he deserves her anger.

“Are you following me?” she demands, “I am going to call the police this time.”

“Please, I can’t breathe,” he gasps, and she relaxes the arm she has pressed across his throat. “I’m not following you, I teach art in the next room, I promise, but yes, I knew you were here, I was waiting for you, only because wanted a chance to explain,” he says, his deep blue eyes wide and sincere, and she (why does she let this persuade her?) relents and steps back, releasing him.

Then her eyes catch on the notebook that he dropped, the notebook that has fallen open, to a drawing of, guess who? “Okay, then tell me, why are you still drawing me?” she asks, shoving the picture in his face.

“I can explain,” he repeats, “but you’re scaring the kids,” and she see’s the little kids hovering wide eyed, all clutching identical sketchbooks.

She studies him. Now that she’s gotten over the shock of seeing him here, she’s feeling surprisingly unthreatened. He doesn’t have Gale’s intimidating height, but he’s powerful looking, yet nothing about him says aggression or threat.

So she agrees to meet him. In a public place, a coffee shop. She’s not an idiot.

He arrives with a stack of notebooks and a nervous smile.

“So,” she says, still not entirely sure why she’s agreed to this.

He slides one of the books across the table. “I know it sounds crazy, but I truly didn’t realise I’d made her into you until I saw you at that show. I’ve seen you around at the community center, and I’d done some body position type sketches, but I thought that was it. The rest was unintentional, I swear.” She opens the book, starts flipping through it. It shows a woman, who sort of looks like her, but just passingly. But as she gets closer to the end she gets more and more like Katniss.

“I don’t get what you’re trying to say.”

“That’s my character notebook. When I’m creating a new character it takes a lot of repetition to get the details right, so I can draw them consistently. And yeah, I’m not going to lie, I watched you a little while you were teaching, because my girl’s a warrior and I wanted to get the way she carries herself correct, but I do that with a lot of people, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Most of my characters have some aspect of a real person, but somehow without my noticing she sort of became all of you.”

Katniss isn’t sure whether she should feel flattered or alarmed. She looks more closely at the sketches in the notebook. Her character isn’t wearing skimpy clothes or striking provocative poses. She’s mostly doing mundane things, and it’s not her face stuck on a Playboy Playmate body. It’s basically her own rather modest curves.

“Okay. But now you know. So stop drawing me, and then we’ll be good.”

He winces. “Here’s the thing. I didn’t see you for the last few months, we must’ve been on a different schedule at the center or something. But that was a really productive few months for me. My character, her name is Lesha by the way, Lesha is the lead in my new series. The whole first book is already mostly done. So, to stop drawing you means scrapping months of work, and probably the entire concept.”

Katniss leans back and crosses her arms. She’s starting to see where this is going, and she’s not liking it. “And this is my problem, why?”

He just gives her a pleading look and slides the whole stack of notebooks across the table. “It’s not, I know, but please, just read it. I think you’ll really like her?”

She reluctantly picks them up. “Fine, I’ll read it. But I’m not promising anything.”

His face lights up, and yeah, okay, that wholesome boy next door thing he has going on may be part of why she’s doing it. He’s nothing like her usual dark, broody, and dramatic type. He’s cute. She ignores the the tug in her stomach. This situation is strange enough without adding that into the mix.

She’s prepared to hate it. (She often hates the things Gale makes her read.) To be immediately offended by a cliche and overly sexualised character. She might be even hoping for it.

But this thing is good. As in: stay up half the night and find a pad of post it tabs to mark the things she wants to talk about with him good. She likes Lesha, the slave girl turned revolutionary, and she likes the way she grows throughout the story.

It annoys her to admit it, but it would be pretty sad if she prevented this thing from being published, just because Lesha looks too much like herself.

When he meets her she wants to laugh at the anxiety in his expression. So he does have an artist’s ego after all. “It’s good,” she says, dropping the books onto the table, and he beams at her like she just validated his entire existence. She scowls at him, feeling grumpy from a lack of sleep. “What do you want me to say?”

“That I can publish it. I’ll pay you a fee or whatever, I just want written permission.”

Katniss shakes her head at his naivety. “There’s no way I’m going to do that.”

The sunny smile drops from his face. “Oh. So, you’re going to make me scrap the whole thing?” He looks like he might cry. He covers his face with his hands and Katniss feels evil for teasing him.

“No, I want you to publish it.” He straightens up at that, eyes her, waiting for the catch. “But I’m not going to just sign my rights away like that. You don’t know what I do for a living, do you?”

“Teach martial arts?”

“Sometimes. But mostly I consult with small businesses to increase their profit margins.”

He looks apprehensive. “Are you saying I have to hire you? I don’t think I can afford to. I don’t even make a living doing this. I teach and do freelance work just to pay the bills.”

Katniss nods; she’d assumed as much. She doubts he markets himself effectively. He was selling the original concept artwork for his (if Gale is anything to go by) ‘hotly anticipated new series,’ at a small time show, without any promotion? Yeah. He needs help.

“Here’s my terms. I don’t want any money up front, I’ll take a percentage of profit, only on this series, but I have final veto on what Lesha does, and a say in how it’s marketed.” He frowns at that. “No graphic sex scenes, or pointless nudity, nothing too objectifying, that sort of thing,” she adds, and his expression relaxes.

“Oh that won’t be a problem. I’m keeping it T or under. Works best for my teen girl demographic.” Katniss shakes her head at that. She wonders if Gale knows his idol considers fourteen year old girls an important readership. Her marketing brain latches onto the idea. It’s probably a group that few others are going after, so it certainly is worth discussing. “And yeah, I don’t think you get how little I’m going to make off this, but I’m fine giving you a cut. Ten percent?”

“I’ll get you a contract.” She’d have been happy with five percent. She’d probably do it for free. It’s a terrible business decision, but the combination of that story, and this man make her unable to walk away.

“Do I get to ask for things too?” She knew his agreeableness was too easy.

“Like what?” she asks suspiciously. This is where the creepy comes in, she’s sure.

“Can I get you to, I mean,” he stumbles nervously, “will you model for me?”

Katniss crosses her arms over her breasts. “I’m not posing naked.”

He chuckles, still looking nervous. “I wasn’t asking you to. I mean, if you offered that would be great, because, you know, accuracy and stuff, nothing pervy! But I was thinking more, I could find a few things similar to what she wears in the story, and you could show me some fighting stances and stuff, help me get the posture and body position just right.”

What do you even say to that? “I can’t give you too much of my time, but yeah, I could do that. With my clothes on.”

He laughs. It’s all so awkward and she has no idea how she’ll be even able to handle posing fully clothed, but she feels a bit giddy herself. “I’ll put it in the contract.”

And they smile at each other.

“This is going to be great. Thank you,” he says. Resisting his cuteness, that eager enthusiasm, is going to be torture. But this is a business arrangement now. And Katniss is always professional.

She looks down at the notebook open on the table. It’s Lesha embracing her love interest. They’re not even kissing, just hugging like neither of them ever wants to let go, but Katniss still flips it shut.

“So, what’s this series called anyway?”

“Forbidden Planet.”

How apt.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gale can't contain his excitement.  
> Leaks and spoilers occur.  
> Who is 1mellarkfan?

Gale is insanely jealous. 

“How do so many amazing things happen to you?” he demands, when Katniss casually mentions that she’s working with Peeta on Forbidden Planet. 

Katniss rolls her eyes at him. She doesn’t quite get why Peeta Mellark sends Gale into gibbering idiot mode. Peeta’s talented, and nice, and yes he’s very attractive, but Gale’s crush is far bigger than her own, and she actually knows the guy.

Gale is full of ideas about how she can engineer a meeting between them from upfront (tell him your best friend is his biggest fan) to the sneaky (perhaps you could arrange to meet him at your place, and I could sort of drop by?) but Katniss ignores them all. It’s not that she thinks that Peeta would be against making all Gale’s fanboy dreams come true, (okay not against making any of his platonic fanboy dreams come true, she’s doesn’t think they go beyond that, but she’s not asking either) but it’s more that this thing feels private and precious, and she’s selfishly reluctant to let anyone else in.

Working with him has been good. He has no ego (usually the biggest obstacle with clients) and listens to her advice eagerly, and then follows through on it. He’s a dream client. 

And he’s so thrilled by everything. The limited presale on his website, as an anticipation builder to the big release at the convention this weekend, had gone even better than Katniss had expected. The only promotion they’d done was via social media (and yes, Katniss hadn’t hesitated to use Gale as an unwitting shrill) and yet the 100 copies had sold out in less than an hour. 

Katniss had joined Peeta at his kitchen table turned shipping station to get those 100 copies out as fast as possible. They needed to give these super fans a chance to read and begin talking these comics up before the major release. Of course if they hate it things will be bad. But Katniss is confident.

The reviews are almost uniformly glowing. Katniss shakes her head a bit when instead of focusing on that Peeta is fixated on the comments of a few trolls, who she doubts have even read the thing. But she’s worked with creatives before, she knows they tend to believe the worst reviews and ignore the best. 

So she’s not even surprised when Peeta calls her in a panic on Thursday afternoon. He’d been calm and confident that morning when she touched base with him, but he’s setting up for the convention. Even the most level of artists get antsy before a big opening. 

But that’s not what has him in a panic. 

“I’m sorry, so sorry, I swear it wasn’t me, I haven’t even told my brother about you,” he babbles as soon as she says hello. 

“What?”

“Twitter, it’s all over twitter, but I don’t know how!” She switches him to speaker so she can check her feed, he’s not making a lot of sense. 

“What is all over twitter?” 

“You! You’ve been outed as the inspiration for Lesha. But I didn’t say a word. It’s looking like it’s coming from someone called 1mellarkfan.”

Katniss scowls. She knows exactly who 1mellarkfan is. And he, more than anyone, should know why she wanted to keep her role as Peeta’s muse quiet. He’s the guy who doesn’t even let the people he works with know that he reads comic books.

And speak of the devil, he’s letting himself into Katniss apartment. “Hold on a minute will you?” she tells Peeta and turns to confront Gale. 

“What did you do,” she demands, and the guilt that flashes onto his face is all the evidence she needs. Before he can even start to cover his ass she adds, “Gale, seriously, I’ve got Peeta on the phone, and you better explain to him why it is that he’s spent the day stressing over his twitter feed rather than getting ready for his big show.”

Gale goes pale. 

“I didn’t mean for it to happen, I swear.” She believes that, he’s not a malicious person. “It was just, that I finished reading Forbidden Planet yesterday, and it was so amazing, so I was talking to some people about it, and I may have said something about how much I liked Lesha, and how it would be so cool if the muse was at the con too, and then people started asking me stuff, and I don’t know.” He rubs his face. She seriously has no idea how a police officer can be so loose lipped. Isn’t discretion part of their job?

“Did you get that Peeta?” 

“So, you’re not blaming me?” his disembodied voice says. 

Gale looks even more horrified. “He was listening?”

“What part of explain yourself to Peeta did you not understand?” She turns her back on him and switches the phone back, “nope, blaming the giant idiot standing in the living room. I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with this today.”

“You have no idea what a mess I am right now. The booth is nowhere near done, and I don’t know how to reply to all the questions I’m getting, and I don’t even know what to do next. I’m so tired Katniss.”

“Okay. Here’s what you do. Call and get passes for me and Gale made, and then go out to your car and lay down and take a nap for an hour. When you wake up we’ll be there with dinner and help you get set up. And then we’ll deal with twitter.”

She makes Gale drive across town while she scrolls twitter, and then checks out tumblr and the other fan sites for good measure. Peeta’s fan base may be fairly small, but they’re rabid. Her business brain is coming up with a solution that her emotional self is rejecting fairly adamantly. 

But one look at Peeta’s tired anxious face, and her emotional self jumps ship to hang out with business marketing. The traitor.

“Okay. Here’s what you do,” she tells him, pulling him aside while Gale is distracted by all the booths. “You’ve been social media silent all day, right?” Peeta nods. “So make one single post. Say you hope everyone can get here early tomorrow, because they’ll be a special guest at your booth from opening until 1pm. And that’s it, don’t answer anything else until tomorrow, and then right before it opens we post a picture of you with me, in full costume, in front of the booth.”

He’s already shaking his head. “No, I can’t ask you to do that, you hate the idea, you told me ages ago.”

She shrugs. “Things have changed, and I can do this. Besides, it’s a bit too late to stop me, I’ve already set up accounts as leshamuse, and followed you. As long as you don’t expect me to wear that gold swimsuit, and I’m allowed to take down sleazy guys who try to grope me.” 

He laughs, “oh not only are you allowed, I demand it. Best part is that’s totally in character.”

The booth goes together surprisingly quickly after that, with Gale eager to redeem himself in his hero’s eyes, and Peeta feeling more calm and focused. 

Katniss makes sure to confiscate Gale’s phone, she doesn’t trust him to resist the temptation to take pictures of the booth and post them. 

She also doesn’t want to have to answer his questions about Peeta’s announcement. He doesn’t deserve advance info at this point. She knows helping Peeta with the booth was more of a reward than punishment. But withholding info? Well, that is the worst punishment of all.

She doesn’t give it back to him until he drops her off, and then she immediately mutes her own. He, like the rest of the fans, can wait until tomorrow to find out what they have planned. 

Peeta has a couple of outfits for her to choose between when she arrives, and she nervously picks out the one that covers her neck to ankle. He helps her with the makeup, and she tries not to hyperventilate. 

“Hey,” he says, his hand gently cupping her face is not doing anything to slow her racing heartbeat, “you don’t have to do this, you don’t owe me anything.” 

She give him a weak smile. “I’m not doing this for you, I’m doing it for my ten percent cut.” 

“Well, no matter your reasons, this is a huge favor, and I want you to know how much I appreciate it, appreciate you. You’ve been more than a muse to me these last few months. You’re my friend, and I hope that you feel the same way.” His eyes shine with sincerity, and Katniss feels guilty for the not exactly a friend thoughts she’s been having about him. This attraction she has needs to go away. He’s not thinking of her as anything more than a friend. 

If she has trouble keeping a smile on her face in the first round of photos, well it’s matching the mood of the outfit, the one that Lesha wears immediately after her liberation from slavery, as she worries over her love interest Dallion, the boy she was forced to leave behind.

But as the morning goes on she starts to have fun. The fans who line up to get her picture are so excited, and the feeling is contagious. She’s always ridiculed Gale for his giddy fanboy antics, but being here, seeing how excited people are, how many teenage girls tell her that she’s their hero, and they love Lesha, and ask for her autograph. Well how can she not get swept up?

On the final day of the con she bites the bullet and puts on the gold swimsuit. Yes, yes, Peeta has debated his case on that repeatedly. That it’s not a swimsuit, that it symbolises the slavery she was forced to endure, that it shows the shallow selfishness of the oppressors that they forced even their most menial servants to appear ‘sexy,’ and that it’s to supposed to contrast with the more practical clothing she wears once she’s freed. Blah blah blah. They both know very well that he needed to show her somewhat scantily dressed on the cover to get guys to take a look. 

But still the look Peeta gives her when he sees her in it makes her want to sink through the floor in embarrassment.

“Don’t act like you haven’t seen me in this before.”

He laughs nervously. “Yeah, I know, but wow, that doesn’t make it any less hot. You know as soon as a few pictures of you in that are posted you’re going to be mobbed by your least favourite fan demographic.” 

“May as well get the ball rolling then,” she says and snaps a selfie of the two of them, careful to show herself from the waist up only. As far as sexy outfits go this one is pretty tame compared to so many others she’s seen this weekend. It has a turtleneck for goodness sake, and while it doesn’t have legs, it fully covers her butt, but there’s no denying it’s Lesha’s most revealing outfit. 

The first time a man grabs her butt the con has only been open for fifteen minutes. She’s grabbed his wrist and thrown him before she even really thinks it through. He stares at her from the floor, more startled than angry. 

“Dude,” Peeta drawls into the heavy silence, “didn’t you read the story? Lesha doesn’t take that sort of thing from anyone.” And the crowd bursts into cheers. The man slinks off giving her an angry glare, but to Katniss’ surprise the next in line, an over eager group of teenage boys asks if they can pose all lying on the floor, like she just took them out in a fight.

It sort of becomes a thing as the day goes on.

“I’m not sure if I like the dominatrix tone this is taking,” she tells Peeta. He just shrugs and continues taking orders, because he sold out of copies of Forbidden Planet hours ago.

Gale shows up mid afternoon.   
Katniss can’t help but laugh. “So, are you patrolling the arena or is that your costume?”   
He looks indignant.

“Do you know how many people have tried to grab my gun? Why the hell would I cosplay a police officer? Anyway, we’ve gotten a complaint that you assaulted a man? I was in the area, so I took the call.”

Katniss groans.

“Well, a fan posted some video that may help sort things out,” Peeta says, “the girl sent me a link just in case he decided to be even more of an ass.” He pulls up a clip on his tablet, and Katniss and Gale crane their heads together to watch. It’s taken from behind and it clearly shows the guy grab Katniss’ butt, and her swift response.

Gale grins. “I think this will clarify who assaulted who, but you know the drill Catnip, this guy was publicly humiliated, so he may try to take some sort of revenge. Watch yourself. Luckily he’s not local, so he should be gone after today.”

Katniss nods soberly. She’s never had a problem herself, but she’s had too many of the women in her classes deal with harassment and stalking to ignore the power of a wounded male ego.

That’s probably why, when she feels a touch on her shoulder as she unlocks her car that evening she responds without thinking, throwing her head back and jabbing with her elbow. She spins around to confront her attacker, and sees Peeta cupping his hands to his bleeding nose. 

“Peeta! I’m so sorry!” She coaxes his hands away from his face, and looks at his poor nose. She definitely felt a crunch when she made contact.

The emergency room takes hours. And Katniss has to call Gale to finish packing up the booth. She doesn’t need to hear his jokes about assaulting two men in less than 12 hours. And if any of this ends up on social media she will kill him. 

Peeta is loopy from pain killers and exhaustion by the time he’s finally released. She takes him back to his place and sleeps on the couch, because she can’t bear to leave him alone right now. 

In the morning she calls her clients and cancels all her meetings for the next few days, claiming a personal emergency.

He staggers out looking awful, two black eyes and his nose all taped up. “I’m so sorry,” she tells him, for what must be the five hundredth time. 

He waves her off. “My own fault,” he says nasally, “I should’ve known better than to startle you like that, I just assumed you heard me coming.”

She forces him to sit down on the couch while she fetches him his painkillers and a glass of water. 

“Hey, do you want me to get you a sketch book or something?” she asks, ducking into his studio space. 

That’s when she sees the drawing on his desk. 

It’s her, and she’s used to seeing that by now. But somehow this is different. Not a picture of Katniss as Lesha, it’s Katniss as herself. And even though she’s fully clothed, it’s the most sensual piece of artwork she’s ever seen. The woman in the drawing stares out a the viewer like she wants everything, and she’s going to get what she wants.

“Crap,” Peeta says from behind her.

“You made me beautiful,” she says, not turning. 

“You are beautiful, I just drew you as I see you.”

She stares at it, her stomach churning. What is she supposed to make of this?

“Katniss, can you look at me?” She reluctantly turns and meets his bloodshot eyes. “You have to know how I feel. You can’t be that oblivious. I am in love with you.” 

She shakes her head, “no, you’re not, it’s just one of those artist muse things, soon enough you’ll have a new girl you’re fixated on.” 

“Katniss. Please. Trust me know know my own feelings. The crush I had on you when I started drawing you may have been ‘one of those muse things,’ but I’ve never felt like this before.” 

When she just stares at him in silence he sighs. “I’m not expecting anything. But, I’m yours if you want me. And I’m not going to bother you with this again, now, can I have my painkillers?” 

She hides from him in the bathroom for a while but eventually she has to come out. He’s sitting on the couch watching TV, and she hesitantly sits down beside him. He asks her if she wants to watch a movie, and they scroll Netflix to choose something, Katniss steers well clear of the romantic comedies, choosing an epic sci fi film instead. She makes him a smoothie for breakfast, and soup for lunch.

Everything is completely normal. As if he never made that confession in the studio. She’d swear it was the drugs, except they’d already worn off at that point. He’s behaving as if it never happened. It’s awful.

“Peeta?” she ventures, pausing the movie, “can we talk about what you said?” He gives her his full attention. She can’t quite read his face in its battered condition, but his body tenses.

“You, you said you’re in love with me. That’s a lot to um, consider. I’m not in love with you.” As soon as she says that the pressure in her chest eases. “I like you, I’m,” she pauses, searching for the appropriate word, “attracted to you. But I’m not where you are, and that, it’s too much. We haven’t even been on a date.”

He doesn’t seem bothered. “Are you saying you want to go on a date with me?” 

Is she? “I think so?”

His face bursts into a giant smile, before he groans in pain and lays his head back on the couch. “Wow, broken nose is cramping my style here. I’d really like to kiss you right now, but I don’t think I’m quite up to it.”

Katniss laughs, “I’m not going anywhere, we’ve got time.” 

It’s only six months later when 1mellarkfan leaks that it was him that brought Peeta Mellark and his muse, now fiance, together.

Peeta and Katniss tell him he’s not invited to the wedding.

He’s actually the Man of Honor.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope that was worth the read, and I promise the second half is written and being edited, so coming soon! 
> 
> I love to hear your thoughts, and if you'd like to chat come find me on tumblr iamseemaree.tumblr.com


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